The State Department report on human rights: another perspective

Mon, Apr 25th 2016, 10:50 AM

"America did not invent human rights. In a very real  sense human rights invented America." - Jimmy Carter

Last week, we addressed the U.S. State Department 2015 report on the state of human rights practices in The Bahamas.

The report noted, inter alia, that: "The most serious human rights problems were mistreatment of irregular migrants (compounded by problems in processing them); an inefficient judicial system, resulting in trial delays and an increase in retaliatory crime against both witnesses and alleged perpetrators; and the perception of impunity on the part of law enforcement and immigration officials accused of using excessive force.

"Other human rights problems included substandard detention conditions; corruption; violence and discrimination against women; sexual abuse of children; and discrimination based on ethnic descent, sexual orientation, or HIV status."

This week, we would like to Consider This... how accurate were some of the observations and conclusions in that report? We will review several comments related to the executive and judicial branches of the government.

Prison and detention center conditions
The State Department report noted that "prison and detention center conditions failed to meet international standards in some areas, and conditions at the government's only prison remained harsh due to overcrowding". The report cited several areas of concern, noting that: "Overcrowding, poor sanitation, and inadequate access to medical care remained problems in the men's maximum-security block."

In 2015, the maximum-security wing of Her Majesty's Prison (HMP) housed 625 inmates in a facility that was designed to hold approximately 375 inmates when it was constructed in 1953.

The total prison population in The Bahamas as of 2015 was approximately 1,400. With a 2015/2016 budget allocation for HMP of $26.4 million, it means that the annual per capita cost for each inmate is approximately $18,900. While we agree that there is an urgent need for prison reform in The Bahamas, we thought it would be instructive to review the state of affairs in the United States, the country that generated the report on prison conditions here.

According to World Prison Brief, which was published by the Institute for Criminal Policy Research at the University of London in February this year, more than 10.35 million people are in prisons around the world, with the United States leading the list with approximately 2.2 million prisoners.

China and the Russian Federation ranked second and third in prison population with 1.65 million and 650,000 inmates, respectively.

The United States, which represents approximately five percent of the world population, holds 25 percent of the world's prison population, making that nation the most congested "community" of persons incarcerated in the world.

By 2007, American prisons spent more than $44 billion on incarceration and related expenses, a 127 percent increase from 1987. Interestingly, over this same period, spending on higher education in the United States rose only 21 percent.

According to a 2012 report entitled "Overcrowding in prisons - Mass incarceration epidemic", statistics on overcrowded prisons demonstrated that the U.S. prison population rose by 700 percent from 1970 to 2005, "a rate far outpacing that of general population growth and crime rates".

The same report noted that "one out of every 122 Americans is now actually in prison, and one out of every 32 of us is either in prison or on parole". Those statistics reflect the state of affairs in 2007 in the United States. By comparison, on a current population base of 350,000, one out of 250 persons is now actually in prison in The Bahamas.

The findings by the Institute for Criminal Policy Research regarding the U.S. prison population were echoed by the U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics, which observed that "the United States has the highest documented incarceration rate and most overcrowded prisons in the world".

Therefore, while we should fully appreciate the urgent need for prison reform in The Bahamas, we should equally put the U.S. State Department's observations in perspective, particularly in light of the latter country's distressing realities.

Denial of fair public trials
The U.S. State Department 2015 report on human rights practices in The Bahamas also noted: "Although the constitution provides for an independent judiciary, sitting judges are not granted tenure, and some law professionals asserted that judges were incapable of rendering completely independent decisions due to lack of job security. Procedural shortcomings and trial delays were a problem. The courts were unable to keep pace with the rise in criminal cases, and there was a growing backlog."

The assertion was made that judges are promised security of tenure under the constitution, but do not have it and that as a result we do not have an independent judiciary. This is completely inaccurate. Judges do, in fact, have security of tenure under our constitution. They cannot be removed except for cases of extreme misbehavior and in the 43 years of independence there has not been a single case of a judge who was removed from office on these grounds. Moreover, the frequency with which judges routinely rule against the Bahamian government and against leading government figures is proof positive that judicial independence is a functioning reality in The Bahamas.

Corruption and lack of transparency in government

The U.S. State Department report asserted that the "procurement process was particularly susceptible to corruption, as it is opaque, contains no requirement to engage in open public tenders, and does not allow award decisions to be reviewed". Again, this is wholly inaccurate. In The Bahamas, government ministries and public corporations frequently award contracts that are worth less than $50,000 based on predetermined criteria.

In addition, the Tenders Board, which oversees competitive bids for public sector work, is chaired by the financial secretary, and plays an important role in determining who receives contracts that are valued between $50,000 and $250,000 under established bidding protocols. It remains the sole prerogative of Cabinet to award contracts in excess of $250,000. Although the procurement process might be different from the procedures practiced in the United States, it is anything but opaque. Indeed, it is quite transparent.

The sources of the State Department report
As stated in the U.S. Department of State 2015 report on the state of human rights practices in The Bahamas, this report is formulated using the following sources of information: "The Department of State prepared this report using information from U.S. embassies and consulates abroad, foreign government officials, nongovernmental and international organizations, and published reports. U.S. diplomatic missions abroad prepared the initial drafts of the individual country reports, using information gathered throughout the year from a variety of sources, including government officials, jurists, the armed forces, journalists, human rights monitors, academics, and labor activists...

"Once the initial drafts of the individual country reports were completed, the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor, in cooperation with other Department of State offices, worked to corroborate, analyze, and edit the reports, drawing on their own sources of information. These sources included reports provided by U.S. and other human rights groups, foreign government officials, representatives from the United Nations and other international and regional organizations and institutions, experts from academia, and the media. Bureau officers also consulted experts on worker rights, refugee issues, military and police topics, women's issues, and legal matters, among many others. The guiding principle was that all information be reported objectively, thoroughly, and fairly."

In other words, much of the report was formulated using information that has been reported by the media, expounded by various activists and experts not necessarily within our country who may not be intimately familiar enough with our culture to offer points of view that are relevant and unique to our nation.

Moreover, reporting "fairly" sometimes does not include taking into consideration how perceptions may differ between those of the evaluating country and the country being evaluated. It also may not take into consideration how skewed media and activist reports might be, depending on the issue and their particular stance on that issue.

Conclusion
As we observed last week, the U.S. State Department report has highlighted some of the systemic weaknesses and deficiencies that must be honestly addressed and seriously rectified on a sustained basis.

It is important that, in a report as important as this one is, all sources are listed so that, equally importantly, they can be fact-checked so as not to perpetuate misperceptions and misrepresentations of the truth.

These types of reports, sadly, are notorious for their sloppy and biased research that leads to egregiously unfair conclusions in a number of vital areas. Those kinds of conclusions, globally circulated as they are in today's world of instant information, can end up costing us very dearly as a nation.

o Philip C. Galanis is the managing partner of HLB Galanis and Co., Chartered Accountants, Forensic & Litigation Support Services. He served 15 years in Parliament. Please send your comments to pgalanis@gmail.com.

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